Animation Mentor to Offer Online "Lighting Your Shot" Workshop

"Lighting, much like dialogue and Foley,
adds a critical element to the storytelling experience. Effective
lighting sets the mood for a particular scene … and can quickly
evoke a change of feeling or emotion. Now, with our six-week
Lighting Your Shot workshop, you can add a new
level and depth to your projects to stand out."
-Animationmentor.com

Animation Mentor, the online animation school, has
announced that they are offering a 6-week workshop on
"Lighting Your Shot," which will feature hands-on
instruction by industry professionals. Animation Mentor is a
leading online, virtual-learning company that has become a major
force in developing and placing talented animators in every aspect
of the VFX and Computer Graphics industry. Their small class size
and innovative e-learning techniques have helped students from all
over the world go from beginner to highly skilled animators through
their 18-month Character Animation program. Recently, they've
started to develop shorter workshop-style classes that have become
increasingly popular.

"Lighting Your Shot" is the latest
workshop from Animation Mentor. It's a 6-week workshop that focuses
on teaching "non-lighters" (primarily animators) the
basics of lighting all the way to advanced rendering and
composition. It's being taught by industry professionals and will
be a mix of recorded lectures and demonstrations, plus 6 live
Q&A's with the instructors. It also includes a 3-year student
license for Maya 2013.

The 6-week session topics of the "Lighting Your Shot"
workshop are:

Overview of Maya Lighting and Rendering User Interface

The Five Principles of Lighting

Devising a Lighting Shot Plan

Advanced Lighting Topics in Maya

The Rendering Process Using Mental Ray

Final Renders, Compositing and Finishing Touches

Each learning session will also have a non-graded assignment and
students have access to class discussion groups and additional
course materials. Registration is open and the workshop begins on
January 2, 2013 and continues through February 11, 2013. Tuition is
all-inclusive and is priced at a very reasonable $499.

Ben Fischler is the curriculum director for the
"Lighting Your Shot" workshop. I had a chance to
interview him about how the workshop developed, the goals he has
for the workshop and get a few more details on what will be taught
during the 6-week workshop.

By way of introduction, Ben is Animation Mentor's Visual Effects
Supervisor. He partners with other departments to develop
coursework, secure mentors, and promote the program. Ben brings
with him over 15 years in the animation and visual effects field,
most recently as Visual Effects Supervisor at LAIKA, and prior to
that in Lighting and Compositing at DreamWorks Animation SKG. His
partial list of film credits includes Madagascar,
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, Over the Hedge,
Shrek 2, and Shrek the Third.

Ben Fischler, curriculum director at Animation Mentor

"The Lighting Your Shot Workshop is for
"non-lighters," meaning animators in particular. It's
really designed to be approachable, not overly technical, and
really about learning how to use lighting in a practical sense, and
how important lighting is to the art of visual
storytelling."
-Ben Fischler, Animation Mentor

Ricky Grove: How did the idea for the "Lighting
Your Shot" workshop come about? How did the idea develop into
the program outline we see being offered?

Ben Fischler: Over the years we've seen
Animation Mentor students express interest in the larger filmmaking
process, with some choosing to light their own shots. Our feeling
is that for animators to succeed they have to be totally focused on
great animation, but for those who want to dig deeper into some of
the other filmmaking and storytelling arts, this is a means of
pursuing those interests. For some it may fill in the "Oh,
THAT'S how it works!" blanks and for other it may actually
give them the skills and the push to begin lighting their work. I
pitched the idea to Bobby and we decided it was perfect for the
Workshop format.

Ricky Grove: Can you describe a bit how the Animation
Mentor format works in a 6 week workshop?

Ben Fischler: The Workshop format is different
than our standard Animation Mentor Class format. Workshops can
vary, depending on the subject and content. With "Lighting
Your Shot," we're using a mix of prerecorded lectures and Live
Q&A lectures, along with a new Dailies format. Students are not
graded, but will have assignments to work with as they choose. Our
Mentor will be selecting student shots to critique using our
eCritique tool which will be presented each week in Dailies.

Ricky Grove: You mention 'we've got a bunch of great
artists from all over the industry and we've brought them together
for you' in the workshop promo video; how many people will actually
participate in the course? Will separate parts of the workshop be
taught by different people (along with Q&A)?

Ben Fischler: For the first Workshop, we've got
one Instructor who comes to us from DreamWorks Animation and Sony
Imageworks, and one Mentor who's also currently at DreamWorks
Animation. Depending on how large the Workshops are, we have a
stable of really top professional Mentors who we may add as needed.
We do have weekly Live Q&As as well, which are a really great
live forum for the students to dive deeper into particular
questions.

Ricky Grove: I really like the phrase "full
cinematic approach," which is used in describing the goals of
the workshop. Can you elaborate on what that means?

Ben Fischler: If the lighting on a film
succeeds, then the audience never consciously thinks about it,
they're just transported into the moment on screen. This is
something we put into context for the animators in the workshop;
that lighting and performance (acting, animation) must work
together and complement each other for a moment on screen to really
shine. We're really encouraging our students to both master the art
and craft of animation, but also think of themselves as filmmakers,
and understanding the relationship between performance and lighting
is a key part of that.

Ricky Grove: Maya is the application chosen for this
workshop (and for Animation Mentor in general); can you carry over
the ideas/techniques taught in this workshop to other 3D packages,
like Cinema 4D?

Ben Fischler: Absolutely. We chose Maya because
it's a great general application, and one which Animation Mentor
students are already quite familiar with. We use mental ray in the
workshop because it's integrated into Maya and all of our students
can use it right out of the box. Mental ray is also used with
SoftImage and Max to name a few, so all of those techniques carry
over quite easily. Cinema 4D is a great package, and the ideas
would certainly carry over, though the buttons and knobs will
change. Perhaps, more importantly, we really try to emphasize that
the software is a tool, and just as you can animate in one 3D
application or another, same goes for lighting. It's the artist,
not the tools... although good tools certainly help!

Ricky Grove: What exactly is a 'Lighting Shot Plan' and
how does it fit into the workshop?

Ben Fischler: The Lighting Shot Plan is
basically how we go from image conception to execution. In the same
way that an animator will almost never just jump into a shot
without first doing some planning and research (studying other
shots, shooting reference material, thumbnail sketches) the same
goes for lighting. We really encourage students to think about the
intent and mood of the shot and then gather materials to help
inform their goal. We also go into some production related planning
ideas, on how to keep your scenes in good working order to help
make the process a bit easier.

Ricky Grove: Lastly, what do you want the
student/attendee of the 'Lighting Your Shot" workshop to come
away with when they've finished the course.

Ben Fischler: My goal is for the students to
feel comfortable starting to work lighting into how they conceive
of their own shots, and perhaps, more importantly, help them
develop their eye for lighting and the role it plays in filmmaking
in general... and of course, to have a blast in the process!

Notes

My thanks to Ben for taking the time to answer my questions and
for sharing his ideas with me while handling a busy schedule. And
special thanks to Animation Mentor for their continued good will in
sharing their company ideas and projects. It's been a great
pleasure to see Animation Mentor grow.

Ricky
Grove [gToon], Staff Columnist with the Renderosity Front
Page News. Ricky Grove is a bookstore clerk at the best bookstore
in Los Angeles, the Iliad Bookshop. He's also an actor and
machinima filmmaker. He lives with author, Lisa Morton, and three
very individual cats. Ricky is into Hong Kong films, FPS shooters,
experimental anything and reading, reading, reading. You can catch
his blog here.

October 29, 2012

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